Thoughts on Food

We have another foodie in the house. When I reluctantly started feeding Charlotte at 6 months she wasn't particularly interested in what I had to offer. But over the course of 2 weeks, she went from an apathetic taster to an enthusiastic inhaler. This girl will eat anything.  In the beginning, I would offer her a new food, mango for example, she would suck and suck on the piece until the rind was clean. I would call Jeremy, "She loves mango!" The next day it was pear, "She loves pear!" The next day is was egg salad "She loves egg salad!" Eventually, he got the idea. She has yet to meet a food item she doesn't like. Dinner is possibly her favorite time of the day. I put her in her chair naked with food on her tray and let her loose. She will literally sit and eat for an hour. Her attention span is astounding. Nothing like a little food as motivation. It is so fun to watch her choose which item on her tray she wants to eat. If there are 3 different choice (olives, strawberries, raisins for example) she will scan the tray, decide which piece she wants to eat, pick it up and eat it. The next bite will be a different selection. Sometimes a raisin and strawberry at the same time. Hey, why not? I don't think she will have an aversion to her food touching.

Feeding a baby feels like such a huge responsibility to me. For the first 6 months, her nutritional state never crossed my mind. Now, every single thing that goes into her body is exclusively my decision. Her health and nutritional well being is in my hands.  I think I should have gone to nutrition school before this. And, as with every other thing in the parenting world, there are 10 million different opinions about the healthiest diet for children. I definitely fall into the safe, predictable camp, no gimmicks or fads just basic fruits, veggies, whole grains. Staying away from obviously poor choices. Then again, how many people grew up on chicken nuggets and tater tots and turned out just fine? Feeding her is a magnifying glass on my poor eating choices. Maybe I should hire a mother to dictate my diet as well as I control hers. "No cookies for you, Kelly, here is some juicy mango to enjoy!"

The real reason I feed Charlotte is so I can take 23,000 adorable pictures of her covered in food.